Chapter Four I
He was in bed for three days with a temperature (but nothing more serious); Howard, the School doctor, chaffed him unmercifully. “You’re a lucky man. Speed, to be ill in bed with Mrs. Speed to nurse you! Better than being up in the Sick-room, isn’t it?” Once the idea occurred to Speed that he might be sickening for some infectious complaint, in which case he would be taken away and isolated in the Sanatorium. When he half-hinted the possibility of this to Howard, the latter said, laughing loudly: “You needn’t worry, Speed. I know you don’t want to lose your pretty little nurse, do you? I understand you, young man—I was your age once, you know.”
But the strange thing was that what Howard supposed Speed didn’t want was just what he did want. He wanted to lose Helen for a little while. Not because he didn’t love her. Not because of any reason which he could dare to offer himself. Merely, he would admit, a whimsical desire to be without her for a short time; it would, he thought, clutching hold of the excuse, save her the work of attending to him. He could hardly understand himself. But the fact was, Helen saddened him. It was difficult to explain in detail; but there was a kind of aura of melancholy which seemed to follow her about wherever she went. In the short winter afternoons he lay awake watching her, listening to the distant cheering on the footer pitches, sniffing the aroma of tea that she was preparing for him; it was all so delicious and cosy, and yet, in a curious, blinding way, it was all so sad. He felt he should slide into madness if he were condemned to live all his days like these, with warm fires and twilit meals and Helen always about him in attendance. He could not understand why it was that though he loved her so dearly yet he should not be perfectly happy with her.
How strange it was to lie there all day listening to all the sounds of Millstead! He heard the School-bell ringing the end of every period, the shouts of the boys at call-over, the hymns in the chapel—(his Senior organ-pupil was deputising for him)—Burton locking up at night, the murmur of gramophones in the prefects’ studies; and everything, it seemed to him, was full of this same rich sadness. Then he reasoned with himself; the sadness must be a part of him, since he saw and felt it in so many things and places. It was unfair to blame Helen. Poor Helen, how kind she was to him, and how unkindly he treated her in return! Sometimes he imagined himself a blackguard and a cad, wrecking the happiness of the woman who would sacrifice everything for his sake. Once (it was nearly dark, but the lamp had not yet been lit) he called her to him and said, brokenly: “Helen, darling—Helen, I’m so sorry.” “Sorry for what, Kenneth?” she enquired naturally. And he thought and pondered and could only add: “I don’t know—nothing in particular. I’m just sorry, that’s all.” And once also he lashed himself into a fervour of promises. “I will be kind to you, Helen, dearest. We will be friends, we two. There’s nothing that anybody shall have of me that you shan’t have also. I do want you to be happy, Helen.” And she was happy, then, happy and miserable at the same time; crying for joy at the beautiful sadness of it all.
Those long days and nights! The wind howled up from the fenlands and whiffed through the ivy on the walls; the skies were grey and desolate, the quadrangle a waste of dingy green. It was the time of the terminal House-Matches, and when Milner’s beat School House in the Semi-Final the cheering throng passed right under Speed’s window, yelling at the tops of their voices and swinging deafening rattles. In a few days Milner’s would play Lavery’s in the Final, and he hoped to be up by then and able to watch it.
Of course, he had visitors. Clanwell came and gave him endless chatter about the House-Matches; a few of the less influential prefects paid him a perfunctory visit of condolence and hoped he would soon be all right again. And then Doctor and Mrs. Ervine. “Howard tells me it is nothing—um—to be—um, er, perturbed about. Just, to use an—um—colloquialism, run down, eh, Speed? The strain of the—um—concert must have been quite—um—considerable. By the way, Speed, I ought to congratulate you—the whole evening passed in the most—um, yes—the most satisfactory manner.” And Mrs. Ervine said, in her rather tart way: “It’s quite a mercy they only come once a year, or we should all be dead very soon, I think.”
And Clare.
Helen had kept her promise. She had written to Clare asking her to tea on a certain afternoon, and she had also contrived that when Clare came she should be transacting important and rather lengthy business with the Matron. The result was that Speed, now in his sitting-room though still not allowed out of doors, was there alone to welcome her.
He had got into such a curious state of excitement as the time neared for her arrival that when she did come he was almost speechless. She smiled and shook hands with him and said, immediately: “I’m so sorry to hear you haven’t been very well. I feel partly responsible, since I dragged you all that way in the fog the other night. But I’m not going to waste too much pity on you, because I think you waste quite enough on yourself, don’t you?”
He laughed weakly and said that perhaps he did.
Then there was a long pause which she broke by saying suddenly: “What’s the matter with you?”
“Matter with me? Oh, nothing serious—only a chill——”
“That’s not what I mean. I want to know what’s the matter with you that makes you look at me as you were doing just then.”
“I—I—I didn’t know I was. I—I——”
He stopped. What on earth were they going to talk about? And what was this look that he had been giving her? He felt his cheeks burning; a fire rising up all around him and bathing his body in warmth.
She said, obviously with the desire to change the subject: “What are you and Helen going to do at Christmas?”
Pulling himself together with an effort, he replied: “Well, we’re not certain yet. My—er—my people have asked us down to their place.”
“And of course you’ll go.”
“I’m not certain.”
“But why not?”
He paused. “Well, you see—in a way, it’s a private reason. I mean——”
“Oh, well, if it’s a private reason, you certainly mustn’t tell me. Let’s change the subject again. How are the House-Matches going?”
“Look here, I didn’t mean to be rude. And I do want to tell you, as it happens. In fact, I wouldn’t mind your advice if you’d give it me. Will you?”
“Better put the case before me first.”
“Well, you see, it’s like this.” He was so desperately and unaccountably nervous that he found himself plunging into the midst of his story almost before he realised what he was doing. “You see, my people were in Australia for a holiday when I married Helen. I had to marry her quickly, you remember, because of taking this housemastership. And I don’t think they quite liked me marrying somebody they’d never seen.”
“Perfectly natural on their part, my dear man. You may as well admit that much of their case to start with.”
“Yes, I suppose it is rather natural. But you don’t know what my people are like. I don’t think they’ll care for Helen very much. And Helen is bound to be nervous at meeting them. I expect we should have a pretty miserable Christmas if we went.”
“I should think in your present mood you’d have a pretty miserable Christmas whatever you did. And since you asked for my advice I’ll give it you. Buck yourself up; don’t let your imagination carry you away; and take Helen to see your people. After all, she’s perfectly presentable, and since you’ve married her there’s nothing to be gained by keeping her out of their sight, is there? Don’t think I’m callous and unfeeling because I take a more practical view of things than you do. I’m a practical person, you see, Mr. Speed, and if I had married you I should insist on being taken to see your people at the earliest possible opportunity.”
“Why?”
“Because,” she answered, “I should be anxious for them to see what an excellent choice you’d made!”
That was thoughtlessly said and thoughtfully heard. After a pause Speed said, curiously: “That brings one to the question—supposing I had married you, should I have made an excellent choice?”
With a touch of surprise and coldness she replied: “That wasn’t in my mind, Mr. Speed. You evidently misunderstood me.”
And at this point Helen came into the room.